Book Review - When Now Begins by Elisabeth Asbrink

Elisabeth Åsbrink’s 1947 begins appropriately, in January. At the start of that year in the Palestinian village of Arab al-Zubayd, a 16-year-old girl is one of several children captivated by an itinerant entertainer’s tales and magic box pictures.

In the White House, President Harry S Truman writes in his diary and thinks about his predecessors, some of whom are “controlling heaven and governing hell”.

In New York, Eleanor Roosevelt convenes the first meeting of the first session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Thousands of Nazi fugitives stream into Denmark and Sweden, and then escape to South America.

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The Communists win a landslide victory in Poland’s elections. And in a rural town outside Cairo, a clockmaker’s son yearns to “turn time towards Islam”.

At the end of the book, and by the end of the year, the world has changed dramatically. The Cold War has heated up and Truman has created the CIA. Nazis continue to flee Europe but so too do Jews in search of their promised land.

The clockmaker’s son, Hasan al-Banna, has instructed his Muslim Brotherhood to prepare for jihad. Over the coming months the UN General Assembly will recognise genocide as an international crime, and the Palestinian village will be razed. The man with the magic box will not be back, Åsbrink explains: “there is nothing to come back to”.

The book’s subtitle is When Now Begins. Åsbrink – a journalist and author from Sweden – posits the argument that 1947 was not just a turbulent year to file and forget but a pivotal year marked by critical turning points which have shaped, or disfigured, our modern world.

Rather than cleave to convention and divide the book into chapters relating to specific upheavals – social, cultural, political, economic – Åsbrink has taken the original approach of proceeding through the year month by month and covering all areas in short, concise sections.

The sections come with a geographical heading and range from two-line summaries to eight-page reports; condensed vignettes to fact-filled episodes. This snapshot-type structure, together with the lively, lyrical and consistently fascinating content, makes for a unique history lesson.

Åsbrink’s main strands are not passing events but unfolding crises, whose developments and ramifications she monitors on a monthly basis. Most of them concern the rise and fall of nations and the clash between East and West. A UN committee is tasked with finding a solution to the problem of Palestine in four months.

A British lawyer is given five weeks – “no more, no less” – to draw borders separating India from Pakistan. The exploits of Swedish Fascist Per Engdahl and those of his other European counterparts are indicative of a resurgence in the Far Right (“a pendulum about to strike back”). And piece by piece, the mighty edifice of the British Empire starts to crumble.

Åsbrink impresses with her astute portrayal of post-war uncertainty and confusion, and her searing depiction of violence and mayhem – in particular the bloodbath of Partition and massacres in Palestine.

But her book doesn’t only follow attempts to divide and misrule, or cases of political ignorance and expedience. Åsbrink also tracks a number of significant steps and stages: the first computer bug is discovered, and production begins on the Kalashnikov; at his Paris “dream factory” Christian Dior creates the New Look, while on the Scottish isle of Jura, George Orwell works non-stop – “chain-writing, chain-smoking, chain-coughing” – on his masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. Åsbrink shows world history as it happened seventy years ago, and history in the making.

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Original review on: www.thenational.ae

Book Review - Dead Man's Blues by Ray Celestin

This massive, mammoth, mesmerizing mystery takes place in Chicago in 1928 with its plethora of mobsters, murderers, millionaires, musicians and marginalized minorities. 

Race permeates everything, particularly with Chicago’s recent intoxication with jazz — and every alcoholic beverage during Prohibition. Al Capone runs a tight ship, and Louis Armstrong’s arrival from New Orleans in 1922 starts the town dancing.

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Celestin magnificently anatomizes Chicago from the Gold Coast to Bronzeville, complete with beer and brothels, corruption and the stink of the stockyards, steel mills and speakeasys. 

Race, regions and riches clash, collide and confront one another. Sex runs rampant. Jazz juices up the blood. Poisoned alcohol kills. Everything can be bought from the governor on down.

Three mysteries immediately surface. Why has Capone summoned Dante Sanfelippo, a bootlegger from New York, to Chicago? Can Pinkerton detectives Ida Davis and Michael Talbot help old-moneyed Mrs. Van Haren find her daughter Gwendolyn, who’s vanished along with her beau, Charles Coulton? 

And who’s the dead man in the alley that crime photographer Jason Russo, discovers? How will this triad merge? Who’s addicted to what? And why do more bodies end up in the sewer canal and by the old Pullman Ice Works?

Is there a traitor in Capone’s outfit? Who’s been sabotaging his liquor runs? Who’s been gouging corpses’ eyes? How is Randall Taylor involved, the black guy who treats rich whites to “slumming” in Bronzeville?

The novel’s divided into sections — cadenza, duet, solo, improvisation — that mimics Armstrong’s hit recording “West End Blues.” 

Celestin’s prose often waxes lyrical and poetic and makes this a terrific book to immerse yourself in. Chicago plays a major role, engulfing, killing, and entangling all comers. Social Darwinism rules with a bloody vengeance, and the stakes are literally available to the highest bidder.

This city of “chrome and speed” delights, appalls, terrifies and seduces. And so does Celestin’s ultimately majestic novel.

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Original review on: http://www.providencejournal.com

Book Review - Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe by Dimitar Bechev

At a time when scrutiny of Russia’s overseas influence is growing worldwide — from the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election to Moscow’s military intervention in Syria — Dimitar Bechev's exploration of Russia’s relationship with its near neighbours in Southeast Europe is highly relevant.

In “Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe”, Bechev examines Russian relations with the countries of the Balkan peninsular and Turkey since the fall of communism, looking at Moscow’s strategic goals in the region and how it has used the resources at its disposal to achieve them, and conversely the motives behind the states in the region in their dealings with the East European major power.

One of the key messages from “Rival Power” is the pragmatism and lack of idealism on both sides, which goes against alternative theories of engagement based on historic solidarity and pan-Slavism. This also contrasts with the ideologically-driven Russian foreign policy in both Tsarist and Communist times.

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Instead, “what transpires … is often crude opportunism”, writes Bechev, a research fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina and non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He adds that “as long as there is a scope for the deal, the price is right, and the opposite party can deliver on commitments, Moscow is open for business”.

Similarly, the engagement of governments in regions such as the Western Balkans with Russia is motivated to a large extent by political gain and economic profit, and their leaders are “far from passive objects of Russian policies, much less Moscow’s pliant instruments”.

Bechev devotes sections of the book to the various countries in the region: the Western Balkans, EU and Nato members Romania and Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus as “the core of the pro-Russia camp in the EU”, and — perhaps most interestingly — Turkey.

Winning over Ankara, says Bechev, is one of Russia’s most significant achievements in Southeast Europe, as he charts the “highly complex and ambivalent relationship” between the region’s two major economies that has combined rivalry within the post-communist space (a race early on and decisively won by Russia) and the Middle East, with “growing levels of economic interdependence, a partial overlap of strategic interests, and a shared love-hate relationship with Europe and the West”.

Under the two strongman presidents, Vladimir Putin in Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this relationship blossomed and while it was tested by their opposing views on Syria and Turkey’s downing of a Russian bomber, the recent rapprochement has proved the bond’s resilience.

One of the critical points made in “Rival Power” is that Russia has been in a relatively weak position in Southeast Europe vis a vis the Western powers, especially the EU. Governments across the region, even close allies such as Bulgaria and Serbia, have made no secret of the fact that they value their membership in or future accession to the EU above their relations with Russia.

Still, Russia has managed to claw its way back from its weak position after the end of the Cold War, and the scars left by the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990s, to make firm friends across Southeast Europe even in countries that are firmly in the Western camp.

To achieve this, the country that historically had an “unflinching belief in hard power” used a combination of tools ranging from the military buildup in the Black Sea, to less conventional levers such as using its position as the major gas supplier to the region and the use of soft power instruments to sway local populations in its favour. “The essence of [Moscow’s] policy is playing a weak hand the best possible way,” Bechev says.

“Russia is not in a position to challenge and roll back the EU, draw red lines for the United States, or control the foreign policy of other states, but it can manipulate and rally public opinion in its favour,” he writes. While this doesn't mean Moscow can achieve goals such as keeping countries from the region out of Euro-Atlantic organisations — witness the failed campaign to prevent Montenegro from joining Nato — Russia’s actions are “just enough to muddy the waters and put Europe and, to a lesser degree, the United States, under constant pressure”.

Looking at Russia’s position in the region over the last two and a half decades, Bechev argues that its influence reached its zenith with the planned South Stream project, a time when “the whole of Southeast Europe appeared to be Russia’s stomping ground”.

Not only would this have cemented its position as the gas supplier for the region, it would also have embedded Russia more deeply with local elites. “What works in Russia’s favour is not the development of strategic infrastructure but rather the pervasive state capture in the energy sector across Southeast Europe,” he writes.

After South Stream was scrapped, Russian influence started to wane, a situation that is likely to continue as more countries in the region edge towards membership of the EU. Yet Moscow’s influence in the region remains “real and easily observed”.

In the last two years, the West has also been weakened, creating new opportunities for Russia to assert itself, especially in the Western Balkans, thanks to both the fragility of democratic regimes in a region that has seen a slide towards authoritarianism in some quarters, and the “weakening pull of the West in the age of Brexit and Trump”.

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Original review on: http://www.intellinews.com

Book Review - Strong To The Bone by Jon Land

Jon Land's Caitlin Strong thrillers usually have a "ripped from the headlines" feel, and the new one, "Strong to the Bone," features violent neo-Nazis, industrial robots, a lethal biological weapon, the international opiates trade and a creep who buys pharmaceutical companies to jack up the price of drugs.

For the uninitiated, Strong is a trigger-happy, insubordinate, fifth-generation Texas Ranger whose exploits always have a direct link to one of her ancestors' investigations. 

In this one, the ninth book in the series, it's her grandfather Earl Strong's pursuit of a Nazi who escaped from a World War II prison camp in Texas in the 1940s.

The series' other regulars, including Caitlin's long-suffering commander, D.W. Tepper; her ex-con lover, Cort Wesley Masters; and Masters' sons Luke and Dylan, all return. 

The oldest boy, Luke, who becomes more like his father with every book, initiates the action when he faces off against neo-Nazis who harass his Mexican-American friends.

The story also finds Caitlin coming face-to-face with the darkest moment in her past. Called to the scene of a nightclub brawl in Austin, she discovers that a young woman has been drugged and raped.

The circumstances are eerily similar to what happened to Caitlin when she was a college student — an assault Land reveals here for the first time.

Caitlin soon suspects that the girl's assailant and hers are one and the same. This makes Caitlin wonder if she's always been quick to pull the trigger because she harbors a deep-seated rage against male offenders.

Eventually, the Masters' struggle against neo-Nazis and Caitlin's pursuit of the rapist merge into a single, related criminal case. As always with this rollicking, entertaining series, the complex plot is resolved in a burst of righteous violence.

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Original review on: http://www.nzherald.co.nz

Book Review - THE SECOND COMING OF THE KKK by Linda Gordon

The cover of Linda Gordon’s “The Second Coming of the KKK” shows a procession of men marching in full Klan regalia up Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol dome looming behind them. 

It would be a disturbing image in any era, but in 2017 — after the attack on an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., after the neo-Nazi demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., after the alt-right poured into Washington for President Trump’s inauguration — it is terrifying.

The photograph was taken in 1925, during the decade when membership in the so-called Second Ku Klux Klan — the first was put down during Reconstruction — swept the country. 

In all, 30,000 men participated in that parade. What the photo leaves out are the throngs lining the avenue: The Klan didn’t just march in the nation’s capital; it received a warm welcome. 

Unlike the first and third Klans (the third appeared during the civil rights era), the 1920s Klan was well integrated into American life. “The K.K.K. may actually have enunciated values with which a majority of 1920s Americans agreed,” Gordon writes.

One of Gordon’s tasks is to show that the 1920s we think we know — a Gatsbyan bacchanal of speakeasies, flappers and mob hits — was just an urban, coastal bubble. 

For most Americans, it would appear, the decade was more like something out of “Babbitt” or “Elmer Gantry”: a country turned inward against the world, small-minded and cruel. 

A country in which the Klan and its values — so-called Americanism, xenophobia, white nationalism and patriarchy — were the norm. An America, Gordon all but says, not unlike today.

The second Klan was national in scope, with a surprisingly small footprint in the South — its highest per-capita state memberships were in Indiana and Oregon. In New Jersey, Klansmen burned a cross in the black section of Metuchen, today a liberal commuter suburb of New York. 

The Klan was so powerful in Southern California that it nicknamed Anaheim “Klanaheim.” Its main focus was, as always, on spreading hatred against blacks, Jews and Catholics, but its agenda always fit the local context: In the Southwest, it turned its ire on Hispanics and Latino immigrants; in the Pacific Northwest, it took aim at Japanese.

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Original review on: www.nytimes.com

Book Review - Password by Martin Paul Eve

We have come far as a civilised society and with it, the way we see or do things has seen a drastic change too. Take, for instance, the measure we use to keep our secrets safe. In simpler words -- the password.

While in the pre-Internet days, something as simple as "Open Sesame" would have done the trick, today even a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, a numeral and a special character, a word that is certainly not the username, a word much different from the last three passwords and 10 million other requirements are not enough to ward off potential hackers. 

Whatever happened to just using your favourite sports team, best friend's name or other memorable phrases as the password?

Since we spend a major chunk of our time on this combination of weird letters and symbols, it's high time we talked about it and explored its increasing significance in our currently digital world. 

This is what Martin Paul Eve sets out to do in his book "Password" as he explores "how 'what we know' became 'who we are', revealing how the modern notion of identity has been shaped by the password".

While Eve, Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at University of London's Birkbeck College, dwells on use of passwords down history, in military, in literature -- most importantly J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter series, where passwords are used in different forms -- in films and, of course, in the digital age, the important question is: What is its future?

If we were to go by dystopian sci-fi movies like "Blade Runner 2049", the answer would be that biometrics would replace it.

Though dismissing the contention that biometrics are a plot to kill the password, Eve does agree that it's a pretty solid way for authentication and identification. 

At the same time, he seeks to remind us how futile it can be, as shown in many films where a body part is removed from a dead or, in a more ghastly scenario, a still alive person to authenticate their biometrics.

So, coming back to the password, how do you keep your information, specially of the financial sort, safe? The question becomes more pertinent with the biggest global firms facing cyber security threats. 

But we can't help that. What we can do at our level is to make the password harder to crack (and may be not surf porn sites or torrents, and not save all our passwords in our phone?)

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Original review on: www.newkerala.com

Book Review - The Go-Backer by Peter R. Decker

The crux of the conflict in Peter R. Decker’s novel The Go-Backer illustrates the frustrations of “those who moved west and followed the mandate of Manifest Destiny,” but who never succeeded in their efforts and returned to their homes back East. As Decker notes, “seven of ten of homestead seekers failed to attain their dreams.”

As is the case with Decker’s other two novels, Saving the West and Red, White, and Army Blue, The Go-Backer is well-researched and enriched by details.

In Saving the West, John Marlow – a fourth-generation Colorado cattle rancher – is engaged in a struggle for the ownership of his bankrupt family ranch, detailed by Decker’s specific and accurate knowledge of ranch life in Colorado.

In Red, White, and Army Blue, Hiram Marlow (same family) – the son of an Iowa hog and grain farmer – ends up homesteading in Colorado after serving in the army fighting Indians, detailed by Decker’s knowledge of military protocol and the rough demeanor of frontier army personnel.

In The Go-Backer, Calvin Marlow (the father of Hiram Marlow) – a small farmer from Vermont and a Civil War veteran – takes his family west on a wagon train to start all over in Colorado, only to give up and “go back” to where he came from.

Decker’s narrative of this adventure includes details about the route the family will follow on the wagon train west, the procedures to follow on the wagon train, even a comprehensive list of exactly what to take on the wagon train – a breech-loading rifle and a Colt revolver, wool clothing, woolen socks, heavy boots, blankets, quinine, opium, camphor, some cathartic medicine and brandy for snake bites.

Upon arrival at their destination, Decker suggests a substitute for the brandy might be a local product, “pilgrim whiskey”: “A concoction of raw alcohol, red pepper, molasses, and a touch of water.” “It takes a little getting use to,” they say, “but once you do, it’s like mother’s milk.”

Also included in Decker’s details are explicit instructions – laid out by John Ferguson, the “captain” of the wagon train – the rules to be followed in order to deal with any difficulties that might be encountered on the trail, particularly regarding any Indians they might encounter.

The only serious obstacles the pioneers actually do encounter, however, are the death from cholera of one of the wives on the train and the rape of one of the young daughters on the train, perpetrated by Ferguson himself. 

This atrocity results in the killing of the captain by Marlow – who discovered the act in process – putting Marlow in fear of the law for the rest of his stay in the West.

One of the most interesting characters Decker develops in the novel – aside from the dastardly captain – is the Oglala Sioux, “Loud Thunder,” who becomes a valuable help to Marlow once he settles in Colorado. Thunder demonstrates how to efficiently cut sod bricks out of the tough prairie soil, for instance.

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Original review on: durangoherald.com

Book Review - The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Like other works by Louise Erdrich, the story of The Round House is rooted in the lives of Native Americans. These are not people living in conical tents and wielding battle axes. 

They are a ‘regular’ community in which teenagers talk about Star Trek and people drive to work. The story begins with a drive that a thirteen-year-old named Joe takes with his father, as they go looking for his mother, who’s taking longer than usual to get back home.

This is, perhaps, the most fateful drive of their lives. As they head for a grocery store, where they think the boy’s mother might be, they see her driving past – in the opposite direction, meaning homewards – at a furious speed. 

Following her home, they discover a terrible event, one that’ll change their lives forever. The mother, Geraldine, has been brutally raped, with a degree of violence that has left her utterly traumatised.

From here on, Joe’s world becomes a pre-occupation with getting justice, trying to understand what happened to his mother, and coming to terms with his own adolescent desire for an attractive older woman.

This is also where the illusion of Native Americans being absorbed into mainstream modern American society develops many cracks. 

Getting justice for Geraldine is that much more complicated because she is Native American and the perpetrator may be non-Native; and the place of crime may be outside tribal jurisdiction. 

The story also places practical tribal wisdom against the lenient attitude of urban law towards a certain class of crimes. Among Geraldine’s own people, what her rapist would get is death, for such a crime can only have such a punishment. But the courts of American law might see things differently.

The crime at the core of the story leaves Joe and his parents lacerated. Connecting with them means feeling some of their pain. That’s why this book can’t be called a mere page-turner – it’s not casual reading; it leaves a deep impression.

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Original review on: http://www.hindustantimes.com

Book Review - THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE by Haruki Murakami

Recounting the journey the reader makes with the protagonist, Senan Tuohy-Hamill explains why The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is his favourite book.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is a breath of originality. Murakami is known for his unusual blend of the mundane and the fantastical, and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle epitomises this style. 

This book is my favourite because it really resonated with me, the way it links together seemingly unrelated ideas into a meaningful story is incredibly unique

Set in 1980s Japan, in the capital of Tokyo, the book begins as a portrayal of the relatively normal life of the main character Toru Okada along with his wife, Kumiko. 

However, things begin to take a strange turn when their cat disappears. As the couple’s relationship deteriorates, and the world of the everyday becomes more and more distant, Toru begins to feel alienated from reality. 

The characters he meets throughout the story highlight his descent from the surface world of normality to the dream-like, illogical world where he begins to feel more and more at home.

If, like me, you love delving into new and different characters, and following their development and arc, then this book is perfect for you. 

There is a constellation of unusual and bizarre characters, ranging from psychic sisters to war veterans, all of whom intrude upon Toru’s life and contribute to its increasing bizarreness. 

Murakami manages to create the perfect juxtaposition of the ordinary and the fantastical, leaving the reader confused, just like Toru as he tries to navigate these strange happenings. 

The use of magical realism is what makes this book so unique as it combines events that would otherwise have no contact with each other.

Murakami has a knack for creating a dream feel, one that gently carries you along to the end. It almost feels like an easy read, except for the amount of questions left unanswered. 

Though this can be frustrating for some, if you focus less on loose-ends and more on the exploration of a person and their development you will get more out of this novel.

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Original review on: http://www.universityobserver.ie

Book Review - Black Man in a White Coat by Anna Farlane

The White Coat Ceremony is a common rite of passage in American medical schools that is intended to welcome physicians-in-training into the institution of medicine. 

The white coat is meant to signify professionalism and trust with patients and the ceremony is a time to emphasize this. With students and physicians alike clad in their white coats (albeit coats of different lengths), the message is clear: In the practice of medicine, we are all equal.

However, once the glow of the ceremony has waned, and the white coats are shed—revealing the black and brown and white bodies underneath—the question remains: Are all physicians and, more importantly, all patients, treated equally?

In his memoir, Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine, Dr. Damon Tweedy addresses this question through an examination of race and its interactions with medicine at all levels of his medical training. 

His goal for Black Man in a White Coat was to ‘paint a fuller picture of the experiences of black patients, as well as that of the black doctors who navigate between the black community and the predominately white medical world’ (7).

Though Black Man in a White Coat focuses primarily on Dr. Tweedy’s thoughts and reflections on his medical training, he is far from the book’s only source. 

Drawing from other memoirs, history books, public health studies, and various other resources, Tweedy weaves a complex tapestry of information in support of his observations. This is most prominent in Part 1: Disparities, which includes the first four chapters of the book.

Chapter 1, ‘People Like Us’ explores Dr. Tweedy’s experiences with the tensions of being a black medical student and recipient of a diversity scholarship to Duke University School of Medicine. 

In Chapter 2, ‘Baby Mamas,’ Tweedy explores the complex interactions of health disparities though the stories of black mothers Tweedy met as a second-year medical student. 

Chapters 3 (‘Charity Care’) and 4 (‘Inner-City Blues’) document the socioeconomic challenges of access to health insurance and health education that patients faced during Dr. Tweedy’s time at a rural community health clinic and an inner-city emergency department.

The most compelling section of the memoir is Part II: Barriers, in which Tweedy shifts the focus of the memoir from the role of race on people’s health to the role of race in the practice of medicine. 

He recounts his experiences during his internship year through the lens of dealing with prejudiced patients (Chapter 5, ‘Confronting Hate’), prejudiced doctors (Chapter 6, ‘When Doctors Discriminate’), and prejudice against the LGBTQ community (Chapter 7, ‘The Color of HIV/AIDS’).

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Original review on: http://blogs.bmj.com

Book Review - TO THE GOLDEN SHORE BY COURTNEY ANDERSON

Adoniram Judson, at age nineteen valedictorian of Brown College’s class of 1807, returned home to Massachusetts after an unsuccessful summer in New York City’s theater district.

Uncertain of his goal in life, although a successful author, he had little ambition in literature. And certainly no intent to follow his father’s career as a church pastor.

On his way home from New York, Judson chanced to stop at a small town inn over night.

The only remaining room was next to that of a very ill man.

The man caused no real disturbance, but Judson heard occasional moans, and people coming and going next door.

When paying his bill next morning, Judson casually asked about the man’s condition.

“He’s dead,” the inn-keeper said.

“Who was he?”

“Young man from the college in Providence. Name was Eames. Jacob Eames.”

Judson’s closest friend in college and a man with little or no belief in God.

His shock left no recollection of the next few hours, but he arrived home in mortal fear for his own soul.

He had only one question to ask himself, “How shall I so order my future as best to please God?”

Judson became the first American missionary to foreign lands.

In 1813 he and his wife Ann (“Nancy”) reached Burma (now called Myanmar), an Asian country with twice the population of the whole USA at the time.

Burma’s king ruled his Buddhist country with an iron grip.

Few Burmans dared express interest in Christianity.

Judson spent the first six years on translating the Bible into Burmese.

It’s a difficult language, letters like circles and half-circles, no spaces between words, and entirely different meanings depending on the spoken tone.

Yet both Adoniram and Nancy became fluent.

Nancy cultivated acquaintance with the Rangoon city governor’s chief wife.

Arrival of another missionary with a printing press made possible a much wider spread of the Gospel.

Judson’s first Burman convert to Christianity occurred six years after Judson’s arrival.

Rangoon was in turmoil, King Bodawpaya had died; the British government reacted with hostility to Burma’s incursions into India.

When young King Bagyidaw summoned the viceroy of Rangoon to Ava, the national capital 400 miles up-river, Judson obtained permission to accompany him and petition the King to permit publication of the Bible in Burmese. The new King expressed no interest.

In 1821, however, a new missionary and physician, Dr. Jonathan Price arrived.

His skill in removing eye cataracts caught the King’s attention, who then commanded Price’s appearance “at the Golden Feet.” in Ava.

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Original review on: http://www.shoshonenewspress.com

Book Review - Women Who Work by Ivanka Trump

In May, The New York Times published two poison-pen reviews of Ivanka Trump's book Women Who Work. Jessa Crispin (Twitter handle @theBookSlut) ranted it sounded like “the scrambled Tumblr feed of a demented 12-year-old.” 

So it's not surprising that the Times would slam her mother Ivana's new book Raising Trump, complete with her ex-husband described as a "throbbing blister."

Does anyone wonder why the Trumps might think the Times has an animus against them?

The Sunday Times Book Review carried this attack on the front cover, by liberal Vanity Fair scribbler James Wolcott. Ivana's book was reviewed alongside Jerry Oppenheimer's new biography of the Kardashians. 

Wolcott notes that Ivana Trump boasts that her children Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka are all "faithful spouses, superb parents, accomplished business people and sterling assets during their father's presidential campaign." 

Wolcott finds that barely worth contemplating: he thought the title Raising Trump was all about "husband-wrangling." 

I fear Ivana has mistimed her memoir and misread the mood of the troubled country, which isn’t interested in heartwarming holiday tales, family recipes, cute anecdotes about her trying to order a glass of Chablis at a Taco Bell, tips on teaching kids manners and the grown-up kids’ rote testimonials reiterating throughout the text what a swell mom she was and is (Ivanka’s initial entry has all the warmth and personality of a ribbon-cutting ceremony). 

We’re past the point of indulging hokum with a high thread count.Uppermost on the reader’s inquiring mind is how Ivana’s intimate perspective might help us unlock how the slick wheeler-dealer who charmed and courted her when she arrived in Manhattan in the 1970s — “an all-American good guy,” her instincts told her — mutated over the decades into apresident so seething with ignorance, malice, prejudice and destruction. Some hints, that is, of how we got into our present predicament of being held hostage by a throbbing blister.

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Original review on: www.newsbusters.org

Book Review - Beyond The Green Line by Marc Goldberg

In the interests of transparency and full disclosure, I first met Marc Goldberg, the author of “Beyond the Green Line,” when we both emigrated from London to live at a Jerusalem residential Hebrew-language course back in 2001.

It was crystal clear to everyone that Goldberg’s primary and overwhelming motivation in immigrating to Israel (way beyond attending Hebrew classes!) was to join an elite unit of the IDF. 

Beyond the Green Line is his memoir consisting of vignettes describing his experiences during his military service as a British Jewish immigrant.

Indeed, the person I knew after his IDF service was a different person to the rather gung-ho and glory-seeking individual who went in with such commitment to the cause of defending Israelis from the terrorism that was destroying lives during the so-called Second Intifada. 

Goldberg’s book offers a personalized and very honest insight into how the IDF, and the intense experiences he went through, changed him.

Too many commentators and media have already relegated the Second Intifada to the history books, which is premature. 

For any Israelis who lived through those dark times, it is the terror war on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and elsewhere that remains seared in the Israeli consciousness when compromises with the Palestinians come up for discussion. 

While books have been written about that period, barely any have focused on personal accounts from regular Israelis who lived through it, whether as ordinary civilians or soldiers.

If you are looking for geopolitical analysis of the IDF operations that took place to arrest Palestinian terrorists and prevent suicide bombings, you won’t find it here. 

What you will find are the honest and vivid thoughts of an Israeli soldier serving his new country while seeking meaning and self-identity.

Goldberg doesn’t make grand judgments when he finds himself in situations that raise legitimate moral questions over how to deal with the Palestinian civilian population while fighting terror. He doesn’t need to. 

Incidents involving the military takeover of Palestinian civilian family homes in the dead of night or dealing with stone-throwing Palestinian children feature in Goldberg’s musings, offering a human and personal side to the conflict while allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

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